Chris Brown is really sorry for "what went down" with Rihanna, you guys. He's so sorry that he spent the majority of his 20/20 undermining her statements on the incident while promoting himself for the swell guy he really is.

In yet another softball interview regarding Brown's brutal attack on ex-girlfriend Rihanna earlier this year, Robin Roberts sat down with the oh-so-redeemed R&B star to discuss the abuse, the fallout from the abuse, how he made Rihanna cry with a song she claims she's never heard before, and and perhaps most importantly, to promote his new album and show off his dope sneaker collection. Isn't he the coolest, you guys?!

Brown seems to take a great deal of pride in the fact that he made Rihanna cry with the song he wrote for her, as if it's some great accomplishment on his part that he was able to evoke an emotional response from a woman he beat horribly just months earlier. Whether or not Rihanna has heard the song is unclear, but the point is that she said she didn't, and Brown still insists on undermining her interview in order to promote himself as some romantic savior with magical songwriting healing powers.

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It is a quality in Brown that seems to come out in every interview he gives on the issue: he's sorry for "what happened" or "what went down" (he never seems to actually say, "I'm sorry for beating/physically assaulting my ex-girlfriend") and plays himself up as some angelic changed man who should be commended for writing apologetic love songs and going through mandatory community service and domestic violence classes. As Chris Richards of the Washington Post writes, since the assault, "the 20-year-old Brown has shown various faces to the media — flip, contrite, smug, confused — apologizing at every turn while still seeming not to fully grasp the severity of his misdeeds."

But why shouldn't Chris Brown be smug? Why shouldn't he sit there in that chair and gleefully report that he made Rihanna cry with his song? With networks continually giving him and his album a promotional faux-contrition platform, why shouldn't Brown seize the spotlight and play the role he seems best at playing as of late: the brand new man, who surely has, as Roberts breathlessly adds in a post-interview voiceover as his new video plays in the background, become someone whose lyrics show "lessons learned and love lost." Ah yes, lessons learned and love lost. For what truly sums up the effects and fall out of domestic violence, not only on those involved but on society as a whole as well as "love lost," right?

We are all supposed to forgive Brown: he has paid his dues and given his apologies. Even Rihanna wants to move on at this point. But none of this makes it okay for networks to continually hand Brown a platform to show the world what a super guy he is and how his new album is going to wash away his sins. The message everyone is sending is that it's perfectly okay to beat the living hell out of someone and return to glory less than a year later, thanks to a few classes, a few half-ass apologies, and a song or two. It isn't a new message: we've seen it before and surely we'll see it again. Could Brown really be sorry? Could he really have changed? Perhaps. Forgiveness and change exist, but they're a tough sell when promoting your new record seems to be the push behind them, an lately it seems that everyone is giving him a spotlight and an invitation to return before he's shown any honest signs of deserving it.